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Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, kids: it’s the Mighty Atom, a 50-year-old Japanese manga revived for this slick, shiny, if ever-so-slightly soulless CG caper.
Fun, colourful and full of action, David Bowers’ ’toon will have little trouble diverting those of a similar age to its perky, wide-eyed protagonist. But anybody older will probably spend the film’s modest running time ticking off the better movies it clearly borrows from.
Essentially, it’s Pinocchio spliced with AI. Simple as that.
This tale of a robot child (Freddie Highmore) built by a grieving scientist (Nicolas Cage) to replace a human original is surprisingly dark at first, especially when Astro’s ‘father’ casts him out into a wilderness populated by feral kids and rejected androids.
But once the young fella realises he can a) fly and b) shoot bullets from his arse, such intriguing shadings are soon put to one side in favour of predictably noisy mayhem that’ll merely make you feel nostalgic for The Incredibles.
13-year WoW vet left Blizzard for the indie life because "I didn't really feel like a game developer in some way," agrees it's harder for AAA giants to "maintain this connection to the player"
Diablo creator rips into modern ARPGs for being all about "killing screen-fulls of things instantly," says Diablo 2's pacing "is great" and "that’s one of the reasons it’s endured"
Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 dev says the original RPG attracted an audience "sort of like Euro Truck Simulator," with "quite a lot of people who never play games"
